"Kh—kh…!"
Chōza lay amid the rubble, coughing violently—each cough spraying blood.
He wobbled upright, took a few steps, and collapsed with a thud. He tried several times, but couldn't stand.
"Chōza!" Shikaku flashed to his side, voice tight. "How bad is it?"
Chōza forced a bitter smile. "My right arm's… completely broken. Took hits to the organs too…"
"How…?" Shikaku couldn't believe it.
Everyone from the Akimichi line was a powerhouse. With Tsunade gone, Chōza was Konoha's strongest in raw strength. During the battle with the pirate unit, he'd traded blows with giants head-on. How did a single punch from a teenager wreck him like this?
Naruto shook his wrist and said coolly, "Even Tsunade wouldn't go head-to-head with me. Were you out of your mind?"
Faces paled across the shinobi ranks. A ninja's strength doesn't rest only on brute force—but seeing such overwhelming strength inspired a gut terror. It speaks to something primal: more strength, more dominion.
If they had seen Naruto pulverize the Gedō Mazō with his bare fists, they'd be a hundred times more shaken than now.
Inoichi bit down and flashed through a peculiar hand sign. "Shintenshin no Jutsu (Mind Body Switch Technique)!"
An invisible ripple struck Naruto.
Seeing that, the others forced down their fear and rushed in. Gai and Kakashi were the fastest—one left, one right—each whipping out bundles of white binding cloth.
They circled Naruto in blurs; the white cloth wound around and around—mummifying him in seconds.
"Seal, now!" Kakashi shouted, sweat beading his brow. He had no idea how long Inoichi could hold Naruto.
The others understood the urgency. The seal team unfurled a massive scroll across the ground. "Fūinjutsu (Sealing Technique)!"
They performed their work; crooked, tadpole-like black script on the parchment began to flow.
Seconds later, the script crawled up, spreading over Naruto's body and garments.
"It worked!"
The seal team exhaled hard, wiping clammy brows as they stared at the blond boy frozen in place under the racing black script. "Hokage-sama, success—we've sealed Uzumaki Naruto."
With the seal in place, his body, chakra, even consciousness were all bound by the characters.
Hiruzen also let out a breath. "Then use the paper seal—immediately!"
One seal didn't feel safe enough; they needed layers. If the Kyūbi (Nine-Tails) rampaged, it would be Konoha's doom.
"Yes!"
The seal team summoned several more huge rolls—these were pure white from end to end.
"Kami Fūin (Paper Seal)!"
Like bolts of cloth, the white rolls wrapped him left three times, right three times, cocooning him in a pillar of paper.
"Success!" A grin broke across one sealer's face. "Hokage-sama, the paper seal is also in place!"
Two consecutive seals—relief loosened every shoulder. "In the end, he's still just a kid," one sealer chuckled. "Not so hard after all."
Others on the team laughed too. To them, everyone was making mountains of molehills. This supposed S-class missing-nin "Menma" had been sealed so easily he didn't even feel like a typical A-class rogue.
Hiruzen smiled as well, approving: "You've worked hard. Konoha owes you—thank you."
The sealers demurred, but excitement lit their faces—promotions felt within reach.
"This… sealed him? Just like that?" Jiraiya walked up to the towering white paper pillar, disbelief creasing his brow. "How could it be this simple?"
He had crossed fists with Naruto himself; that golden-haired youth had made even him feel fear. And in the Rain battle, the fight Naruto waged with those unknown shinobi had been world-shattering. He'd felt true despair.
And yet… sealed?
A sealer frowned. "Jiraiya-dono, what do you mean? We worked hard for this."
Others bristled as well. They were special jōnin—one hair from full jōnin. Sealing a brat should be child's play.
"No, that's not—" Jiraiya shook his head, still staring at the paper pillar as if it weren't real. "It just… shouldn't be this easy…"
The sealers grew more annoyed. Hiruzen stepped in: "Since even Jiraiya says so, add a few more seals. Make sure Naruto cannot escape."
"Understood," the sealers replied, though grumbling as they prepared yet another layer. "Hokage-sama, our work is A-rank fūinjutsu, and we already applied two layers. Even if we stopped now, Uzumaki Naruto wouldn't possibly—"
Rrrip.
A neat split opened in the paper pillar.
Bang!
Two fists punched out through the white, seized the wrapping, and tore it cleanly like a newspaper—peeling it back to reveal the golden-haired youth inside.
"Seriously… the main body gave me too little chakra. Even breaking a Shintenshin no Jutsu took effort…" the blond youth murmured. He stepped out of the paper, glanced over the slack-jawed seal team, and spoke mildly:
"You want to seal me—and you bring this trash?"
"At least bring an S-rank fūinjutsu, yeah?"
At the same time, Inoichi's eyes flew open. His face went chalk-white as he dropped to both knees. "What… what was that just now?!"
(End of Chapter)
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